The 52-year-old professor, well known for his work turning stem cells into other types of cells like eye and brain tissue, was found by a security guard at RIKEN's Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, western Japan.

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Yoshiki Sasai was a Japanese biologist and Director of the Laboratory for Organogenesis and Neurogenesis at the research institute RIKEN. Sasai was best known for developing new methods to grow stem cells into organ-like structures.

In 2012, Sasai became the first stem cell researcher to grow an optic cup from human cells.

On August 5, 2014, he was found dead hanging at the RIKEN institute. It is believed that he committed suicide.

Yoshiki Sasai was born in 1962 in Hyogo, Japan. He received his medical degree from Kyoto University's School of Medicine in 1986. He became an associate professor at Kyoto University in 1996, and a full professor in 1998. In 2003, he moved to the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in 2003 as Director of the organogenesis and neurogenesis group.

Awards

In 2010, Sasai received the Osaka Science Prize for his work on in vitro recapitulation of brain development. He was also the laureate of the 2012 Inoue Prize for Science.

STAP controversy

Sasai was a co-author on the paper describing the controversial stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency or "STAP" cells.A subsequent investigation cleared him of misconduct but criticized him for inadequate supervision of Haruko Obokata, the lead author of the paper.[7] Some media reports have linked this to his suicide at the RIKEN institute.